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Twilight was on edge. She was on an edge that looked over the abyssal space of nothingness and her legs were filled with enough energy to lift anvils. Behind her was a flat savannah that stretched into the horizon with a red sunset and aside from the stillness of the blades of grass that typically bent with the slightest breeze, it wasn’t too particularly interesting. Neither was the blackness of nothingness, only the edge of the two worlds proved to be anything significant.

She dared to peek over to see the world’s end was smooth, cut like a heated knife going through butter. It simply stopped. She took two steps back as one of her legs lunged forward, urging her to the precipice of the void. To her surprise, and fear, the chunk of land where she once stood fell. Now the void was up to her feet again as the circular gap in front of her removed the rubble from the sides, giving it the smooth impression she had seen.

Her legs moved again towards the gap. It was only a passing glance as she unintentionally looked over her shoulder but she saw the sun was setting. With each passing moment, the urge to jump was increased- no, accelerated. The land continued to crumble underneath her. The sun was down halfway. Twilight knew she wouldn’t be able to last much longer. Try as she might, she was going into the void. She was more helpless than a bug wrapped in tissue paper and though she could squirm, she would never be free.

Her body became a puppet as she flew herself over the edge. She felt weightless. She felt... safe? She felt something holding on to her leg. Twilight returned her vision to the sunset to see the silhouette of a pony. An Alicorn.

“Twilight,” Cooper said over the intercom.

The awakened pony lurched forward, gasping. She reacquainted herself with her hooves and her legs under the sheets, taking short light breaths. Her forehead felt heavy and she wiped off the sweat.

“Twilight,” Cooper repeated, “are you okay?”

Her modesty never seemed to sleep as she involuntarily replied, “I’m fine, I think.” She didn’t feel fine, but she’d feel worse if she let them know if she wasn’t. Half of her mind was trying to remind her that that is exactly what infirmaries were for.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he noted. “We tried to ask for Princess Luna’s help but-” he gave a powerful yawn- “she said something there would have made it dangerous to interfere. What do I know? I’m not an Alicorn.”

Twilight nodded. The intercom beeped at her, but no noise came through. Whatever Cooper wanted to say, it wasn’t important. With a faint click from the speaker, she was alone again in the room. The nurses had passed out, their drool running through the wood’s natural dents and on top of the cards. They had moved their table closer to a window so the moonlight would help them see, she presumed. On her door, there was a note saying Princess Celestia would be late this morning due to an unexpected meeting with a minotaur ambassador.

Either it was the dream or her walk last night wasn’t long enough, her legs were itching to get moving again. She examined her reflection in the dome’s walls and found herself appearing to be Maredusa. Even her fur wasn’t looking so well, with patches of it that she had slept on moving in odd directions. If it wasn’t becoming of a princess to present depression, certainly it wasn’t decent to look like a diamond dog.

It was still early for the morning of her second day of treatment. Since the other two who could possibly be affected were far away, Twilight realized she could take a moment to remedy her appearance and leave the room. There was something about being stuck in a ball all night that makes a pony want to move about. She had read, though the medical magazine was less than credible, that patients develop a strong sense of apathy over prolonged periods of time; having a strong ethos or not, there was truth to the statement and she refused to become lazy. She could use the spell for magic hair fix, but nothing worked as well as proper grooming. The awakened princess hopped out of bed and mosied over to the door. With a gentle push on the button, it swung open and she let herself out.

“Ms. Sparkle, I advise you not to leave the quarantine unit,” Cooper warned, watching his patient joyfully trot through the tunnel.

“Is Luna asleep?”

It took a moment for him to respond. “Yes?”

“And Celestia is away?”

“But she could be back from the meeting room soon,” he adamantly reminded her.

“Well, I could use a few minutes to freshen up, maybe take a shower without all the medication in the air.” She winked as she approached the door. “If I do see one of them, I’ll come right back, promise.”

“I can’t let you go. I have specific instructions from Celestia herself not to let you leave the room while you’re ill. I could ask one of our servants to fetch you what you require.”

Twilight blew a small puff of air up, clearing some hair out of her face. With the considerable effort her two fellow alicorns put into their hair, she could easily imagine Celestia forgiving her. It wouldn’t have been the first time she disobeyed Celestia.

“Please? I won’t even be fifteen minutes.”

Cooperation knew that when Twilight was on a mission, or so he had been told, she was nigh unstoppable. But he wasn’t going to take this lying down, he’d only failed a few patients in his life and it sure wasn’t going to be a princess of Equestria. He pressed button number one under the security panel and thick iron bars dropped in front of the door, firmly planting themselves into the floor.

“Bars? Really?” He could only imagine her face with a sort of sarcastic unamusement had he not been looking at the button panel. A flash of purple later and the button glowed blue, signifying it had been disengaged.

“I cannot let you leave this room.” He activated button two.

“Oh, now magic bars? I thought maybe we would have gone up a step.”

Two turned blue. Button three. “May I remind you, Ms. Sparkle, under doctor’s orders not to expend magic lest the Nullam Constantium become possibly stronger?”

“But I’m barely using any magic and I haven’t used any over the past few days,” she rebutted. Another flash of purple and the third button deactivated. Apparently she knew the combination of magic and metal and how to remove both. She was a princess after all, he mused.

“Fine, how about button four.”

“Fire spell number fourteen. I read this in middle school. It can only be disengaged with the opposite flame color on the color wheel.” Zap.

“Clever. You do know your stuff. How about button five?”

“The ball mechanism? Hmmm, oh I see it now. I just turn this cog here and rotate this platform there and...”
Ding.

Well, she didn’t use magic that time. The unbreakable ball mechanism spell solved in a matter of moments. Why would she even need to know a spell like that?

“If you’re wondering, I lock up the library in Ponyville at night with that spell.”

“Number six then.”

“Oh, an Ever-ice spell. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one up close before.” She took a few steps back. “And now I remember why,” she said, shivering to remove slivers of ice forming on her wings. She threw a ball of magic at the door and it froze in midair, leaving a purple ice ball floating in mid-air with a swirling center. “Huh, that won’t work.”

“It’s borrowed from Windigo magic. It’s held back until it’s met with an intense heat-”

“Or the fires of friendship.”

He coked one eyebrow. “What?”

Twilight looked up at the window, more importantly the doctor, and frowned. It was actually the first time she had gotten a good view of him. He was chocolate brown with grey hair, and had an odd pair of red eyes. “The Hearth’s Warming pageant every year? How the founding tribes of Equestria pushed them back with an enkindled heart? The fires of friendship?”

“And you’re... the princess of friendship.” He bumped his forehead against the glass and kept it there. “Well, there’s no more buttons I can press. If you really want this, I suppose I can’t stop you now.”

She mouthed a “Thank you” and walked towards the door, her mind fraught with the ideals of friendship and the magic they had shared. The ice melted around her and she eventually turned the knob and left the room.

He hit his head against the pane of glass three more times. “This is why I’m not security,” he mumbled. His line of sight was drawn to his two lazy employees, still dozing away in their respective dreamlands. “As for you two! Syndrome, Psyde Effect, wake up.”

They continued to snore.

“Wake up or I’m moving you two to the nurse’s office for the school of gifted unicorns.”

They immediately awoke and sat up straight, shoving the cards off of the table and wiping it down with their leg fur. “Right, Dr. Cooperation! We were just havin’ a, uh-”

“Snoring and drool contest!”

“Yeah! Snoring’and droolin’ contest.”

They couldn’t see it, but the doctor bit his hoof at them. “Last time I leave you two on the night shift. Where’s Malady? She should be here by now.”

Psyde grinned. “I dunno, where is yer lady, Doc?” He winced as Syndrome smacked him on the back of the head.

“Thank you.” Cooper walked away from the glass and approached the intercom set in the thin room lined with surveillance equipment for the medical bay. He walked along the side until he found the button he was looking for. “Attention all Solar Guards, Princess Twilight is temporarily out of her quarantine room. There is no need for alarm, but stay alert and make sure she does not make immediate contact with any other Alicorns as a safety precaution. I’d also appreciate a location update every five minutes and transition to make sure she’s going where she says she’s going. Thank you for your attention and have a great day.”

“Sir!”

~~~

“Mr. Strong,” Celestia said, pushing the documents back across the table. “Our fortuitous meeting has been a waste of my and my country’s time. You have come into my domain demanding unreasonable charges against my citizens who have full rights to trade within the towns near the borders, telling me how to run my people even though we hold one of the strongest economic systems on Union, and deliberately spitting on my seventeen fifty seven extinct jampear tree table that has been sturdier and more reliable than your entire government in the last four hundred years.

“But perhaps worst of all is when you thought your threat of a military invasion should your demands be vetoed would be taken seriously by any form of higher establishment between here and the Crystal Empire. I could take away your sun privileges for weeks if I should need to; who cares if the Savanneigh Desert, a landscape so dry even the sky is pale, receives the extra sun in the absence of yours?

“I suggest with every fiber of my being that you remove your disgraceful self from my office and never return. I have never been more insulted than I am now to be in such poor company. You can tell Rex, Champion of the Minotaurs, that if he wants to come debate these terms with me, I will personally come over to his domain and rip his horns off and use them for my next piano. Do you understand me, Mr. Strong?”

The minotaur sat unphased in his chair which he reclined in. His legs were propped upon the very table he had defiled and there was a pillow behind his head. Unlike most minotaurs,his muscle girth wasn’t incredibly impressive and his horns were shorter; that wasn’t to say his entire body was firmly toned and those short horns were glossed. He had the vibe of one being who cared about strength and appearance, both social and political, equally. With a smug grin and slow clap, he replied,“I underestimated you, Princess Celestia; you do have the rage of a minotaur.”

Her frown disappeared and was replaced with her usual heart-warming smile. “Thank you, Mr. Strong. I’ve been training my mind for some time on the matter. I had heard you prefer your negotiations short and simple, and many... unsavory comments are to be said whilst the debate proceeds.”

“And you’d be correct. I almost believed you were angry too.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on his fist. “But this is a Jazzberry wood table, the tiny grains make music notes every three feet. A jampear’s has a similar grain design,” he added, dragging a finger across the top, “but is rugged to the touch and uses eighth notes instead of quarter notes. I first noticed it when you slid the papers across.” He rubbed his index and thumb together. “You almost had me.”

Celestia sipped on her cupglass of tea. “I would have been more surprised had I fooled you, considering Jamtrees used to grow in your kingdom, Mr. Strong. Our trade has been prosperous these last few decades and I would not want to ruin it. Now then, where were we?”

“Ripping my leader’s horns off?”

“Ahh yes. And furthermore-”

~~~

Twilight had been growing more accustomed to all of the eyes that had been falling on her, metaphorically speaking, lately; yet, the eyes of every guard staring directly at her, rarely blinking, was more than enough to keep her walking the straight and narrow along the grand, open hallways. Though the trip to her shower was a short one, it was an odd one. It would seem as if every turn she made to get to her new bedroom, a guard murmured something to no one in particular. They seemed unusually stalwart in their duties today, she noted.

She lingered at the entrance to her room, facing the not-yet-ornate door that was promised to be chiseled by a master carver, visualizing the guards at post behind her. It was becoming of a talent such as herself to harness the ability to detect magic, and there were thin veins of it in the helmets they wore. By chance, another castle dweller patrolled by and the team murmured softly once again. The veins thickened ever so slightly, only noticeable if one was focusing directly at them. It became clear it was nothing more than surveillance duty and she stepped inside.

She was greeted with the artificial scent of a cool spring day, generated by her everlasting candle stick on a sconce near the door. The room was circular and had one bed in the direct center. While castle interior decorators had insisted upon her part that she add more, she had politely told them she didn’t imagine she’d be in the room often enough to make it worthwhile. She eyed one stallion with great suspicion when he asked why she didn’t want it to appear presentable. “Nopony else should be in my room, right?” she remembered asking. “Why would it matter?”

In the right wall was another door leading to her shower. It was a smaller space than what she was expecting, a windowless room with one air vent to remove the steam, an oval mirror, a sink, and a ten foot long countertop. The shower itself had enough room for her to spread her wings out and be several feet away from either end. The room was a sterile white, from tiles to wall colors and after they had insisted it was improper to be conservative on the detailing, her bathroom in the library looked much like this and it felt right. Having not to pick up Spike’s scales off the floor was a blessing enough.

She caught her reflection in the mirror. She had forgotten about the bandages from the magic pulses released in her horn. Dr. Cooperation hadn’t said anything about them, and it felt fine, so she removed them. A trail of purple glitter trailed down in front of her face as she did so with a hoof and a few of the particles retreated into her nose.

“Achoo!” She shook her head and grabbed a tissue from the countertop, finishing the job.

~~~

“-then you expect me to just drop the tariffs like a hot rock because some pretty princess asked me to?”

“No, Mr. Strong, I’m not asking you to, I’m encouraging you to! I’ve received notifications that my citizens are having a hard time sustaining themselves because of that idiotic tax. They’re requesting some funds to leave the province if their conditions do not improve! I’m sure a minotaur as intelligent as yourself would be able to figure out that if they left, so does most of your trade on our goods!”

“Thank you for calling me intelligent you soap bar with wings!”

“I too thank you for calling my pretty! It’s not often people can be straightforward with me!”

“Why can’t all negotiations be this easy with yelling!?”

“I’m unsure! This is the most productive meeting I’ve had in years!”

“Would you like a voice soother so your voice doesn’t wear out when we’re done!?”

“I’d love one!" Celestia swung out her front hoof and smacked the minotaur across the lower jaw, sending him to the floor. She gasped and ran to his side. “Mr. Strong! I apologize, I have no idea what came over me.”

He pushed himself up and rubbed his chin. “That...”

Princess Celestia gulped and her eyes scanned for anything in the room that might alleviate some of the tension.
“...was a fantastic punch! You have done your research into minotaur politics, Princess Celestia.”

The gears in her head, ancient but faithful, stopped clicking. “Excuse me?”

“The punch that seals the deal. I can’t disagree with a ‘motion,’” he stressed, winking slyly, “like that. I’ll speak to King Rex about the tariff and relate to him your firmness on the issue.” He took his hand off his jaw and popped the bones in his neck. He reached into his travel bag and retrieved the voice soothers, two red pills, and handed one to the hard-hitting hailer. “Now then, about weather control.” He cleared his voice after swallowing the medicine. “Your rookie pegasi seem to have an issue understanding our biome.”

She stared at the pill in her hoof, the very one that had lashed out, and then returned her attention to the bellowing mammal. That movement wasn’t her own, she felt something behind it. She shook it off for now, perhaps she had simply lost herself in the heat of the moment, retrieving information she wasn’t aware she had. She swallowed the pill. “What seems-” she stopped, clearing her throat, ”What seems to be the concern!?”

~~~

Luna massaged her head as she stumbled back into her bed. She must have had a powerful dream to have rolled out of bed like that. She thought she had fixed that problem a millennia ago.

~~~

The lack of a window or a more efficient vent caused the room to fog much faster than she had anticipated. At her library, she would never have to worry about it, spare wiping the mirror down. Here, she could hardly see the soap on the rack right in front of her. She groaned as she turned the hot water down and pouted in the lukewarm rain. The steam had been doing well to clear her nose as well.

“Achoo!” She wiped her nose. Something was clearly trying to leave her system and she welcomed it.

She did aim to keep her promise to Cooper as the five-hundredth second rolled by in her head. She wiped her hair back, sending a wave of water splashing across the backwall. Her wings were spread out to their fullest and it was an odd sensation, feeling liquid pellets drip off each feather.

“Five hundred and thirty.” She pushed the faucet back to the left and the cascade ended with a few remaining drips that hit the tile with a plip. “Ok, time to dry off and comb. I don’t think he’ll mind if I use a drying spell to quicken the process just this once.”

~~~

“Well, Mr. Strong, that was a fine series of negotiations.” She held out her hoof and they shook on it. “I hope this will ease the tension along the borders of our two countries.”

Strong huffed a puff of smoke from his nose as he hoisted up his scrolls next to his chair. “Agreed. I shall spread word to my colleagues about your negotiating skills and how wrong we were about you.”

Celestia chuckled, “I’m glad.” In one swift movement, she enveloped the remaining documents in her magic and placed them in his grasp. “Would you like a travel bag?”

He peeked his head around the pile in his arms. “It would help.” With a puff of sparkling dust and some sparks, a bag appeared on the floor, long enough to carry the scrolls comfortably. He bent down and put them in one by one.
“If you will excuse my rudeness though, I do have to return to my student’s side in the infirmary. Are you sure you can manage to navigate the castle halls? I can call for a guide.”

He straddled the carrying bag over his shoulder. “No, that shouldn’t be of any concern. We live in mazes and while your abode is occasionally perplexing in design, I certainly remember my way.”

“Very well. I’ll be going no-ooooh!” she yelped as her body flung itself against the frail wooden door and she crashed through it, her body feeling like a ragdoll filled with iron. She clamped her hooves against her head, shaking off the sudden dizziness. She rolled over and stood up, wiping tiny chips off of her fur as she did so. Back in the room, Strong gave her the most peculiar expression; it was the kind of expression that could have been taken any number of ways, but to her it appeared inbetween impressed and frightened, or perhaps confused.

“Is this some exit ritual?” He looked down at the floor where the once-door laid, utterly destroyed. “Is there a second exit where I break that door?”

“I assure you, it’s not that. It would appear... well I’m not able to inform you what that was. But-” Her hind quarters raised itself above her head, leaving her balancing herself undignified on her front legs. Then she flew backwards, though her wings remained tucked in. Her gold hoof decorations scratched the floor as she desperately tried to cling onto it. An invisible force dragged her down the hall.

“Butt?” Strong asked himself, standing in the open archway. “I suppose they have their own strange ways of ending meetings. We should add that door smashing to ours.” He shrugged. “Well, I can’t go against code. I guess my best way to leave this place is hand walking since I can’t fly and all.” He stretched his arms and popped his neck, then cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders. If it was natural for minotaurs to walk on their hands, no one could have disproved Mr. Strong as he steadied himself in one “Up!”. He temporarily balanced himself on one arm as he wrapped the bag around his leg in a criss-cross pattern. “Hand-walker silver medalist in the Centaur Games! Time to bring these muscles out of retirement! HOO YAH!”

~~~

Luna’s eyes popped open once more as she slammed herself against the floor. It wasn’t a figure of speech, she was literally slammed against the floor. “What in the Big Dipper is-” her cutie mark moon rose above her head, leaving her hind legs to dangle helplessly in the air. “Have I been enchanted?” Her front hooves clung to the bedpost as her rear hovered towards the door.

“Oh no you don’t. Dream or not, I shall not allow my own... wait, how does my bottom know where to go?” She snickered as an immature thought ran through her head. “It must have superior hindsight! Ha! Ha ha!” She wiped a tear from her eye, even though she knew it wasn’t that comical. “Jokes ass-side, I must figure out what force is causing this. Perhaps if I spot it, I can flank it.” Her eyes scanned the dimly lit room. Nothing near the door, nothing in her closet and nothing appears to be near her bed. What about under her bed. But under where in the bed?

“Underwear? Really?” she scolded herself. “I must be sleep deprived if I’m joking about such things.”

The force returned, pushing her dairy-air blimp towards her bedroom door. Her hooves hugged on tightly to the bedpost. “I refuse, demon! Show yourself, whatever vile villain is causing this atrocity of privacy invasion to occur! I hope you do let yourself known, because if I find you first I’m going to morph you into a dog and force you to eat chocolate.”

~~~

Twilight discarded the towel she wrapped around her body as a torrent of sneezes stopped her from opening the door. Unimaginable to any other pony, she had lost count after five sneezes.

~~~

“Guards!” Celestia screamed as she whizzed past them. Her body had become a rag doll, flying helplessly through the air. A pair of nobles ducked out of the way as her back was going to careen into them, narrowly missing having their faces impacted that would have left them with a much different kind of sunburn.

The guards spared no time in wising up. Between the two of them, one being the unicorn and the other a pegasus, they immediately concocted a plan, years of training syncing their minds together. The magician summoned a ballista and wrapped a rope around his feathered companion. He tied the other end to a column and then fired the ammunition: his partner.

He caught the Princess and ran the rope around her middle. “Hold on!” he said, not a moment too soon as the rope snagged against the pillar. The guard was flung off and rolled along the floor until coming to a grunt-filled stop. He realigned his helmet and said, “Attention all on-site security. Negotiation halls, wing b. Rogue missile spell. Alert Dr. Cooperation Alicorn activity is prominent.”

Celestia wound the rope around her front leg as her backside continued to tug against the force of the rope. Underneath her, guards gathered on two sides of her anchor and began to reel her in. The unicorn who started the ballista took lead. “Pull!” he ordered. They pulled and a pair of two remaining soldiers wrapped the slack around the pillar further.

The tether began to crackle as Celestia’s force strengthened.

“Men!” guardspony Trigger spoke. “Tie more rope, keep her from flee-iiiaaaa!” The line broke as all guards were flung to a wall by an invisible force. Celestia gulped as another crack emitted from her only anchor. He pushed himself off the wall and shook the dizziness away.“Princess! What’s happening?”

“Nullam Constantium! Twilight must be-” she stopped herself short as the rope unwound itself around her middle and went over the front of her body. By pure primal reaction, she managed to catch it with her hoof and magically wound it there. Trigger leapt for her other hoof and pulled her closer to the ground.

“Men, make a chain! Something’s trying to kidnap the princess!”

“Sir!” As if nothing had happened, they resumed their duties and followed the order. Making an impressive line of twenty soldiers, they held each other leg locked in leg and made their own rope to the same pillar.

“Don’t worry, Princess Celestia, we will not let go.”

Both of their eyes were drawn to their only means of support as an ominous fault emerged on the pillar.

“Oh dear.”

~~~

Luna flapped her wings as hard as they could, tired and damaged as they were after her recent tumble down the stairs after her bedpost gave way. She must have been reaching twenty wingpower without moving a single inch. “I must think smart, not push harder,” she thought. To her left and her right were two metal supports for the ceiling, temporary measures until the pillar restoration process was complete. For once, ancient castle restoration was about to play in her favor.

She fired a blue pulse of magic at her hooves, turning them into dense chunks of iron. They pulled her directly to the ground, dragging across the floor. Keeping her wings moving as fast as she could, she walked with her two front legs to her right support beam. With a magic discharge, she felt her metallized hoof gain charge and stuck it to the beam. “Good, that’s one.”

Her wings were letting up, she needed to hurry. With one last release of magic, she felt lighter. “Rubberized Ponies. I don’t know why I remember this,” she admitted, huffing in between words, “but I am glad.” She pulled herself with her one hoof to the other beam and stuck it to the metal there. Her body stretched across the entire width of the hall and she could finally let her wings rest.

With a sigh of relief, she stopped. Whatever it was pulling her pulled with all its might, her body with not stretch beyond a certain limit. “Try all you would like, evil do-er. This spell does not permit a pony to break of stretching! I don’t even feel your wrath! I’ve been meaning to catch up on my morning stretches anyways!”

She looked up and down the hallway. “I am glad no one heard that.”

~~~

“Princess!”

They didn’t need to say any more, she saw it with her own two eyes. The crack in her grandiose pillar was unmissable as it ran across the entire front. According to the intrepid fear in her guard’s eyes that looped around it, it was likely across the back too. If it gave way, there would be nothing stopping her from careening through space.

“Attention guards, do any of you remember a mending spell from your training?” Celestia observed the faces down the pony rope and grimaced when none could confidently reply. “No one?”

“I apologize, Princess Celestia,” the third guard down in the chain sorrowfully replied. “The castle servants take care of the mending, I’ve never seen a guard use a mending spell in all of my years of service.”

As fate would have it, it was the exact wrong moment to forget something seemingly useless to a soldier.

A massive stone chunk released itself from the pillar, sending the entire team of guards and herself soaring through the air, screaming in terror, some with manlier screams than others. An unexplainable gut-wrenching force pulsed through their bodies as they took sharp turns through the winding hallways. Nobility and servants alike ran for cover as they zoomed by. Celestia thanked her luck as she realized her and her team were high enough to not hit anything below, but still low enough to give any passersby a heart attack if they were surprised.

It wasn’t until the fourth turn left that Celestia noticed she was approaching a blue net.

The blue net yelled, “What in the world is that!?” and she realized it was her sister somehow also trapped within Twilight’s unintentional spell.

“Luna! Hold on!”

“I don’t have a choice in the matter!”

Luna winced as twenty one pony bodies slammed into her belly, causing her to stretch far more than she should have. Most of the guards gave each other awkward glances as they tried to make sense of the matter.

“Luna, why are you-” Celestia was stopped short as a hideous grinding sound broke her concentration. She pulled her face out of Luna’s body and turned around to see the mammoth chunk of rock coming their way. “Oh no.” It wasn’t rolling across the floor, but across the walls suspended in the air. To make a terrible situation worse, it was headed straight for them.

“I see it too.” She grumbled, “I hate mornings.”

Even if a rock could show mercy, it hit Luna without any sense of the word. Her metal hooves slid off the metal support beams and found themselves wrapping around each other, encasing the stone and the entire team in a blue rubbery ball. They rolled down the hall, screams of terror ensuing.

~~~

Twilight smiled as she reached second eight hundred and thirty in her head. No more than fifteen minutes as she had promised and she looked presentable. Her mane was the way she had always worn it, cleanly cropped and not in every which direction, her fur was properly combed down and there wasn’t a speck of dirt to be found on her. It was a simple matter of opening the door and returning to her dome before Princess Celestia arrived. If anything, she was slowly walking to her now, smiling at her subjects as she walked by and offering each and every one of them a hello and not rolling a gigantic blue ball directly at h-

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